Running against the Winter Olympics, Castle aired a rerun Monday night, turning back to 'Love Me Dead,' one of the lamer episodes from season 2.

What makes this episode lame? Look no further than the hulu summary for the giveaway: "Castle and Beckett are thrust into the world of ex-cons and escorts."

Of course, 'escorts' is a polite way of saying 'prostitutes,' which, is itself a short-hand way of *zzzzz...

[Beat]

Sorry, I fell asleep for a second there just thinking about the world of ex-cons and escorts. I ask you this: could any subject be more played out?

ABCNathan Fillion and Stana Katic, from ABC's 'Castle.'

Prostitution stories are beyond the point where it can be argued that they have any compelling reason to be told. It doesn't matter if a screenwriter thinks s/he is adding a new wrinkle, or coming at it from a different angle. They're not. We need an across-the-board moratorium on prostitution stories making it to the screen, similar to the one that sword-and-sandal epics went through back in the day. Let's give it 25 years to fade from our collective memories.

'Love Me Dead' trotted out the excruciatingly familiar prostitute origin story, when an escort named Scarlet tells Castle that she turned to prostitution after driving to New York City full of wide-eyed optimism, only to have her car broken into on her first night in the big city, leaving her no option other than a life of prostitution to bankroll her way through — wait for it — law school.

It doesn't even matter that Scarlet turns out to be lying, and (twist!) she's the leader of the prostitution ring (a conclusion that fits into the First Person Theory outlined last week). What's so egregious here is that Castle, a novelist with a sharp understanding of storytelling tropes, would have been reeled in by her tale in the first place. It's just not believable.

If there's one thing Rick Castle should be able to spot a mile away, it's bad writing.